ms having
probably existed together "from earliest times"; and that not a single
Vedic hymn "was ever composed without reference to ritual
application"; nay, all the hymns were "liturgical from the very
start"[19]. This is a plain advance even on Bergaigne's opinion, who
finally regarded all the family-books of the Rig Veda as composed to
subserve the _soma_-cult.[20]

In the Rig Veda occur hymns of an entirely worldly character, the
lament of a gambler, a humorous description of frogs croaking like
priests, a funny picture of contemporary morals [describing how every
one lusts after wealth], and so forth. From these alone it becomes
evident that the ritualistic view must be regarded as one somewhat
exaggerated. But if the liturgical extremist appears to have stepped a
little beyond the boundary of probability, he yet in daring remains
far behind Bergaigne's disciple Regnaud, who has a mystical 'system,'
which is, indeed, the outcome of Bergaigne's great work, though it is
very improbable that the latter would have looked with favor upon his
follower's results. In _Le Rig Veda_ [Paris, 1892] Paul Regnaud,
emphasizing again the connection between the liturgy and the hymns,
refers every word of the Rig Veda to the sacrifice in its simplest
form, the oblation. According to this author the Hindus had forgotten
the meaning of their commonest words, or consistently employed them in
their hymns in a meaning different to that in ordinary use. The very
word for god, _deva_ [deus], no longer means the 'shining one' [the
god], but the 'burning oblation'; the common word for mountain,
_giri_ also means oblation, and so on. This is Bergaigne's allegorical
mysticism run mad.

At such perversion of reasonable criticism is the exegesis of the Veda
arrived in one direction. But in another it is gone astray no less, as
misdirected by its clever German leader. In three volumes[21]
Brunnhofer has endeavored to prove that far from being a Brahmanic
product, the Rig Veda is not even the work of Hindus; that it was
composed near the Caspian Sea long before the Aryans descended into
India. Brunnhofer's books are a mine of ingenious conjectures, as
suggestive in detail as on the whole they are unconvincing. His
fundamental error is the fancy that names and ideas which might be
Iranian or Turanian would prove, if such they really could be shown to
be, that the work in which they are contained must be Iranian or
Turanian. He relies in great me